Goldieblox May Be Right About Fair Use, But Wrong About Claiming You Need A License To Link To Its Site

We've already written about the dispute between Goldieblox and the Beastie Boys not once, but twice, coming down strongly on the side of Goldieblox in this dispute. However, as noted in Jeff Roberts' coverage of the case over at Gigaom, it appears that Goldieblox might want to take a closer look at their own terms of service, which makes some absolutely ridiculous and laughable claims about how you can't link to their website:If you can't see that, the key part says:

LINKS BY YOU TO THE WEBSITE. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, revocable, non-assignable, personal, and non-transferable license to create hyperlinks to the Website, so long as: (a) the links only incorporate text, and do not use any trademark graphics that are owned or licensed to GoldieBlox, (b) the links and the content on your website do not suggest any affiliation with GoldieBlox or cause any other confusion, and (c) the links and the content on your website do not portray GoldieBlox or its products or services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise offensive matter, and do not contain content that is inappropriate for children or that is unlawful, offensive, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, violent, threatening, harassing, or abusive, or that violate any right of any third party or are otherwise objectionable to GoldieBlox. GoldieBlox reserves the right to suspend or prohibit linking to the Website for any reason, in its sole discretion, without advance notice or any liability of any kind to you or any third party.

Except, there's no legal basis for this whatsoever. I can link to them here, as I have, and say things that they disagree with, and they can scream and holler about them "revoking" their license to link and it would mean absolutely nothing. Because just as you don't need a license to create a parody song, you don't need a license to link to someone's website. Overly demanding a license or permission for things is a big problem. Goldieblox should be supported for making it clear you don't need a license for parody, but it should be called out for pretending a license is needed for linking. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story